Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Friday, 12 December 2014
Hello beautiful world
Every morning after I wake up, I seat on the sofa, looking at the empty cups of tea. This is my morning ritual. It makes me realise how much tea I drank last night and nothing more. Then I look out the window and there's this tree. Just looking at it makes me feel better. It's a reminder that I need to slow down, to enjoy life. It's a meditation with eyes open and in complete silence. I bet everyone from my building is seeing it. For some, it's just an obstacle to see the railway. For others, it's just the biggest tree from the garden. For the rest of us, it's the meditation tree. Again, the secret is that we don't see trees how they are, we see trees how we are. I have to get up and be part of this world today. I have to put on my lipstick, my uniform, and experience the world. It's always exciting, because every day is different. Yesterday I saw an old man with the whitest long beard at the library. He was flipping the pages of a book with black and white photographs. I don't know if he was Santa Claus, God, a homeless, a scientist or just in my head, but I wanted to go to him and give him a hug. I never did that, but it doesn't matter. Thoughts define who we are, not deeds. Thoughts influence deeds. Our thoughts shape our reality. Whatever you think in your mind hoping no one else will find out, you need to know it's not going to just stay there. Your thoughts are a projection of your desire and they will become your reality by attracting what you are thinking to happen. You can't escape who you truly are. You need to change your thoughts if they are negative, just remember who you truly are within and don't be afraid.
Sunday, 9 November 2014
altfel
Anumite stari se lipesc de tine ca gumele de mestecat de la unirii de talpa noilor tai pantofi. Sunt momente care se repeta la infinit, iar tu inca mai traiesti in ele. Zgarie nori, cascade, zambetul unui copil in 158, imagini care-ti tin mintea ocupata. Mai sunt nopti in care starile astea revin, ca niste alarme. Te trezesti si te pierzi de fiecare data mai intens ca ultima oara. Anumite parti se pierd doar ca sa revina cand esti pregatita sa le intelegi. Altele se pierd la infinit, pentru ca nu trebuiau sa fie niciodata acolo. Acelasi tu de infinit de ori altfel.
Thursday, 3 April 2014
Thursday, 6 March 2014
Thursday, 20 February 2014
The chase for perfection has forgot the beauty of making mistakes
We’re projecting each other until we’re tired of doing so.
We are others ’projections and the others are our projections. However we put
it, we are never left to be ourselves and we always love strangers. We are not
mature enough to stop imagining behaviours more appealing to us. We can’t see
the people around us as they really are. If we would, we would stop asking them
how to be and accept them as they are. And they would stay with us because they
would feel they don’t need to perform all sort of magic tricks. With some of
them, in a weird way, we would feel complete. But there are expectations,
standards, prejudices, labels, people that we can’t get over, relationships
that we did not end. When we meet somebody new, we come in a package with these
accessories. It is really exhausting to be better than the one that he’s trying
to forget and it is completely wrong to try to prove something, anything. We
should be tabula rasa and give up all the shit that’s keeping us in the
past. There is a reason why you are HERE NOW with these people around you, not
with others, but with these ones. There are lessons to learn. Accept them, face
them, face your fears, live. A friend of mine was telling me she paid a visit
to her ex who was living at that moment with his new lover and she told me how he
used the same pet name with his new lover and the same habits he developed
with my friend during their relationship. He kept all that kind of tenderness
and gestures you are building with someone through years of coexisting. There
was nothing new. Just another face, the same story. Many of us have a prototype
in our mind and are looking for someone who can accomplish certain tasks, the
same tasks, who can tick all our boxes, the same boxes forever and ever. It’s
stupid. The whole idea is to endlessly discover yourself through someone else,
not to stick to your comfort zone. We have built up skyscrapers, we are
conquering other planets, we have thousands of years of existence here and we
understood nothing about us because we are trying to find in other people
things we already know we like instead of endlessly discovering ourselves through them. We understood
nothing at all.
Sunday, 5 January 2014
Pacify
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OydK91JjFOw
Pana sa fie gata casa, ai nevoie mai intai de ziduri. Imi amintesc uneori de tine si simt o placere vinovata ca ma bucur ca nu ti-e bine. Ma bucur. Imi amintesti de mine facand toate alegerile proaste pe care le-am refuzat. Tot eu sunt, intelegi. De-asta ma bucur. Ca vad cine puteam sa fiu. La un moment dat mi-era frica de tine, erai asa puternica si profunda. Imi vine sa rad. Si ca am iubit acelasi barbat. Am proiectat prea mult in el, filmul meu pe o amarata de suprafata. Ma uit in urma si rad si-mi dau palme. Nu regret nimic, daca nu era el, nu eram aici si nu eram asa. Iti doresc niste umeri frumosi pe care sa plangi mai incolo, cand iti vei da seama. Asta daca mai ai vreo sansa sa te salvezi. Daca nu, inseamna ca asta era lectia ta si aici trebuia sa fii, alienata in cele mai frumoase timpuri.
Pana sa fie gata casa, ai nevoie mai intai de ziduri. Imi amintesc uneori de tine si simt o placere vinovata ca ma bucur ca nu ti-e bine. Ma bucur. Imi amintesti de mine facand toate alegerile proaste pe care le-am refuzat. Tot eu sunt, intelegi. De-asta ma bucur. Ca vad cine puteam sa fiu. La un moment dat mi-era frica de tine, erai asa puternica si profunda. Imi vine sa rad. Si ca am iubit acelasi barbat. Am proiectat prea mult in el, filmul meu pe o amarata de suprafata. Ma uit in urma si rad si-mi dau palme. Nu regret nimic, daca nu era el, nu eram aici si nu eram asa. Iti doresc niste umeri frumosi pe care sa plangi mai incolo, cand iti vei da seama. Asta daca mai ai vreo sansa sa te salvezi. Daca nu, inseamna ca asta era lectia ta si aici trebuia sa fii, alienata in cele mai frumoase timpuri.
Friday, 3 January 2014
ce sens are
Pana la urma ideea e ca oricate perechi de pantofi noi ti-ai lua, tot n-ai citit Camus, Hemingway sau Marquez. M-am plictisit de pseudofilozofi care au descoperit calea spirituala si singurul lucru pentru care lupta e o boaba in weekend. Baieti, trezirea. Sunteti niste prajiti si evolutia spirituala nu inseamna sa bagi acid si dmt si sa o injuri pe maica-ta sau sa te futi in dreapta si in stanga sub pretextul iubirii universale, nu inseamna nici sa mananci legume si sa faci meditatii si in acelasi timp sa crezi ca TREBUIE SA TE ACCEPTI SI SA FACI CE SIMTI e egal cu a-ti separa corpul de spirit printr-o sintagma idioata si in urmatoarea sa spui ca suntem de fapt energii. Corpul nu e separat de spirit, dar da, suntem energii, aici chiar bravoooo!!! Intre corp si spirit e o uniune, corpul ne ajuta sa intelegem lumea in care traim prin simturi si nu invers, si sa faci ce simti e un slogan prost de la vodafone preluat dintr-un poem din latina scris de unu Horatius. Evolutia spirituala e o experienta care vine in TIMP, ea spre tine, printr-o serie de intamplari care te slefuiesc si fac dintr-un ciob urat ce esti un fel de piatra pretioasa si tu trebuie sa o imbratisezi si sa o cresti, nu sa o fortezi. In momentul in care o fortezi luand chimicale, ea e mai puternica decat tine si ajunge sa te controleze, evident. A, si e si falsa. Pentru ca trebuie sa fiti pregatiti, cretinilor, ca sa intelegeti niste lucruri, ce faceti cu ele dupa ce se termina tripul? Mancati in continuare cacat unul despre altul, umpleti universul de drame ieftine si aveti impresia ca pe acid sunteti spirituali. Bravo,ma. Retarzilor. Si voi sunteti niste proaste care n-au personalitate si nicio sansa sa se ridice mai mult decat parul de pe mana mea si eu n-am par pe mana.
Friday, 27 December 2013
Hell is other people
The play’s three main characters
arrive in hell and discover that their fate is to spend a sleepless eternity
together in one small room, and that they are well suited to be each others’
torturers. As one of them says after a while, Hell is other people. But Sartre
also said,
…“hell is other people” has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell. Why? Because…when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, … we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves. Into whatever I say about myself someone else’s judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment enters. … But that does not at all mean that one cannot have relations with other people. It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people for each one of us.
The characters in the play quickly discover that they cannot really be alone in a room where there are others; whatever any individual does, thinks or feels is shaped by the gaze of the others. Moreover, even when I am alone, the way in which I evaluate my actions, my desires, and my character are taken from the categories and habits of others. We learn from our culture what it means to be a hero or a villain, a man or woman—just as we learn the rest of our language which teaches us to call things by their names. So I am never really alone; I am always in sight of others. This means, as Sartre says, that the kinds of relations we have with others is supremely important.
Politically, this insight can be interpreted in a grim and pessimistic way, but there’s also a more positive way of looking at it. Let’s look at the darker side first.
Learning how to see ourselves as others do is what makes us self-conscious. It gives us a soul. Michel Foucault, another French thinker, argues that the modern soul “is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.” This sense of being always judged and condemned to eternal guilt if we step out of line comes from being disciplined—supervised, trained, and corrected, at home, at school, in church, in prisons and courtrooms, and in the workplace. Our identities were waiting for us at birth. The moment we emerge from our mother’s wombs, we are assigned our names, kinship relations, nationalities, gender, race, and class. As we participate more and more in the on-going social whirl, we accumulate other identifiers—educational achievements, criminal records, credit ratings, buying patterns, employment histories, and so on and on. We are thus gradually drafted into an organized and ongoing game of exercising and submitting to authority. The expectations of friends, co-workers and families combine with the laws and rules of institutions to ensure that the demands that others make of us become the demands we make of ourselves.
So how can there be a bright side to this story? Well, the story leaves something out. It doesn’t tell us why the child agrees to cooperate in its own socialization. Social forms, names and the rest of language, are not imposed forcibly upon us; children are eager to learn the names of things and to participate in the lives of those around them. They like joining in the games we play. Learning language and learning to see the world, including themselves, as others do is as natural as learning to walk on two feet.
What do we gain from accepting our social identities, for playing the games people play? If there is one word for this pay-off, it is recognition. There is nothing worse for any of us than to be invisible, to go unrecognized, to count for nothing in the eyes and the lives of others. So to be recognized as players in the game of social life requires us to play the games that others play, to use the forms of exchange that are already in use. The pay-off for sociality, in other words, is to exist, to be recognized. The need for recognition is as basic as any of our needs; without it, we die or go crazy.
Recognition is not just an individual need, it’s a mutual need. It’s impossible to receive it without giving it. What good does your recognition do me unless I recognize you as well? If I have no respect for you, your respect for me is meaningless to me. So I can be confident in my own existence only to the extent that I recognize the existence of others.
Now to recognize someone in a way that affirms her existence is not just to know her social identity; it is to acknowledge that she has a will of her own. My self-confidence, my sense that I really exist, depends on my intentions being received by others. But that can happen only if those others are real for me; I can exist only if I recognize others. So there’s always a tension, an on-going contradiction we have to live with, between our need to assert ourselves as individuals and our need to belong to the community in which we can be recognized as individuals. Growing up is a matter of learning to balance these two imperative needs: asserting one’s own will and recognizing the will of others.
Unfortunately, as we grow up in this world we encounter shriveled and unsatisfying forms of recognition that leave us always hungry for more. Institutions and their servants see us only as functions—workers, consumers, soldiers, competitors. The language children use to playfully explore their world becomes a means of regulating the world, controlling ourselves and each other. Individuals are recognized according to their power, and communication is reduced to negotiation: I recognize you only enough to get out of you what I want. You are nothing but an instrument of my wishes. But if that’s what you are, then your recognition of me is nothing to me. In a world where most of our encounters with each other are instrumental, we are rarely recognized as individuals, dreamers of our own dreams. The result is a deep insecurity, a sense of not existing, and of not really being present in the world. If I exist, as Sartre says, in the gaze of the other, then if others fail to see me, I fail to exist. R.D. Laing called this state of mind “ontological insecurity”.
What kind of a world would it be in which mutual recognition was the norm, where we all knew that each of us depends upon the recognition of all the rest? To understand this would be to understand that we are the individuals we are only in a social body that supports our individuality. Paradoxically, we can be different only because we are all one. Think about what kind of politics would practice and build such a world!
…“hell is other people” has always been misunderstood. It has been thought that what I meant by that was that our relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations. But what I really mean is something totally different. I mean that if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated, then that other person can only be hell. Why? Because…when we think about ourselves, when we try to know ourselves, … we use the knowledge of us which other people already have. We judge ourselves with the means other people have and have given us for judging ourselves. Into whatever I say about myself someone else’s judgment always enters. Into whatever I feel within myself someone else’s judgment enters. … But that does not at all mean that one cannot have relations with other people. It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people for each one of us.
The characters in the play quickly discover that they cannot really be alone in a room where there are others; whatever any individual does, thinks or feels is shaped by the gaze of the others. Moreover, even when I am alone, the way in which I evaluate my actions, my desires, and my character are taken from the categories and habits of others. We learn from our culture what it means to be a hero or a villain, a man or woman—just as we learn the rest of our language which teaches us to call things by their names. So I am never really alone; I am always in sight of others. This means, as Sartre says, that the kinds of relations we have with others is supremely important.
Politically, this insight can be interpreted in a grim and pessimistic way, but there’s also a more positive way of looking at it. Let’s look at the darker side first.
Learning how to see ourselves as others do is what makes us self-conscious. It gives us a soul. Michel Foucault, another French thinker, argues that the modern soul “is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body.” This sense of being always judged and condemned to eternal guilt if we step out of line comes from being disciplined—supervised, trained, and corrected, at home, at school, in church, in prisons and courtrooms, and in the workplace. Our identities were waiting for us at birth. The moment we emerge from our mother’s wombs, we are assigned our names, kinship relations, nationalities, gender, race, and class. As we participate more and more in the on-going social whirl, we accumulate other identifiers—educational achievements, criminal records, credit ratings, buying patterns, employment histories, and so on and on. We are thus gradually drafted into an organized and ongoing game of exercising and submitting to authority. The expectations of friends, co-workers and families combine with the laws and rules of institutions to ensure that the demands that others make of us become the demands we make of ourselves.
So how can there be a bright side to this story? Well, the story leaves something out. It doesn’t tell us why the child agrees to cooperate in its own socialization. Social forms, names and the rest of language, are not imposed forcibly upon us; children are eager to learn the names of things and to participate in the lives of those around them. They like joining in the games we play. Learning language and learning to see the world, including themselves, as others do is as natural as learning to walk on two feet.
What do we gain from accepting our social identities, for playing the games people play? If there is one word for this pay-off, it is recognition. There is nothing worse for any of us than to be invisible, to go unrecognized, to count for nothing in the eyes and the lives of others. So to be recognized as players in the game of social life requires us to play the games that others play, to use the forms of exchange that are already in use. The pay-off for sociality, in other words, is to exist, to be recognized. The need for recognition is as basic as any of our needs; without it, we die or go crazy.
Recognition is not just an individual need, it’s a mutual need. It’s impossible to receive it without giving it. What good does your recognition do me unless I recognize you as well? If I have no respect for you, your respect for me is meaningless to me. So I can be confident in my own existence only to the extent that I recognize the existence of others.
Now to recognize someone in a way that affirms her existence is not just to know her social identity; it is to acknowledge that she has a will of her own. My self-confidence, my sense that I really exist, depends on my intentions being received by others. But that can happen only if those others are real for me; I can exist only if I recognize others. So there’s always a tension, an on-going contradiction we have to live with, between our need to assert ourselves as individuals and our need to belong to the community in which we can be recognized as individuals. Growing up is a matter of learning to balance these two imperative needs: asserting one’s own will and recognizing the will of others.
Unfortunately, as we grow up in this world we encounter shriveled and unsatisfying forms of recognition that leave us always hungry for more. Institutions and their servants see us only as functions—workers, consumers, soldiers, competitors. The language children use to playfully explore their world becomes a means of regulating the world, controlling ourselves and each other. Individuals are recognized according to their power, and communication is reduced to negotiation: I recognize you only enough to get out of you what I want. You are nothing but an instrument of my wishes. But if that’s what you are, then your recognition of me is nothing to me. In a world where most of our encounters with each other are instrumental, we are rarely recognized as individuals, dreamers of our own dreams. The result is a deep insecurity, a sense of not existing, and of not really being present in the world. If I exist, as Sartre says, in the gaze of the other, then if others fail to see me, I fail to exist. R.D. Laing called this state of mind “ontological insecurity”.
What kind of a world would it be in which mutual recognition was the norm, where we all knew that each of us depends upon the recognition of all the rest? To understand this would be to understand that we are the individuals we are only in a social body that supports our individuality. Paradoxically, we can be different only because we are all one. Think about what kind of politics would practice and build such a world!
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